Many European countries[who?]
have officially denied they are hosting black sites
to imprison suspects or cooperating in the U.S.
extraordinary rendition program. Not one country
has confirmed that it is hosting black sites.
However, a
European Union (EU) report adopted on February
14, 2007, by a majority of the
European Parliament (382
MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74
abstaining) stated the CIA operated 1,245 flights
and that it was not possible to contradict evidence
or suggestions that secret
detention centres were operated in
Poland and
Romania.[1][5]

Official recognition of black sites

Black sites operated by the U.S. government and
its surrogates were first officially acknowledged by
U.S. President George W. Bush in the fall of 2006.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross
reported details of black site practices to the U.S.
government in early 2007, and the contents of that
report became public in March, 2009.

2006 Bush announcement

On September 6, 2006, Bush publicly admitted the
existence of secret prisons[6]
and announced that many of the detainees held there
were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay.[7]

2007 Red Cross report to the U.S. government

The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
prepared a report based on interviews with black
site detainees, conducted between October 6 and 11
and December 4 and 14, 2006, after their transfer to
Guantanamo Bay.[8]
The report was submitted to Bush administration
officials.

Controversy over the legality and secrecy of black
sites

Black sites are embroiled in controversy over the
legal status of the detainees held there, the legal
authority for the operation of the sites (including
the collaboration between governments involved), and
full (or even minimal) disclosure by the governments
involved.

Legal status of black site detainees

An important aspect of black site operation is
that the legal status of black site detainees is not
clearly defined.

The revelation of such black sites adds to the
controversy surrounding US government policy
regarding those whom it describes as "unlawful
enemy combatants". According to government
sources[citation
needed], the detainees are broken into
two groups. Approximately 30 detainees are
considered the most dangerous or important terrorism
suspects and are held by the CIA at black sites
under the most secretive arrangements. The second
group is more than 70 detainees who may have
originally been sent to black sites, but were soon
delivered by the CIA to intelligence agencies in
allied Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as
Afghanistan,
Morocco, and
Egypt. A further 100
ghost detainees kidnapped in Europe and
"rendered" to other countries must be counted,
according to Swiss senator
Dick Marty's report of January 2006. This
process is called "extraordinary
rendition". Marty also underlined that European
countries probably had knowledge of these covert
operations. Furthermore, the CIA apparently
financially assists and directs the jails in these
countries. While the US and host countries have
signed the
United Nations Convention Against Torture, CIA
officers are allowed to use what the agency calls "enhanced
interrogation techniques". These have been
alleged to constitute "severe pain or suffering"
under the UN convention, which would be a violation
of the treaty and thus
US law.

Legal authority for black site operation

There is little or no stated legal authority for
the operation of black sites by the United States or
the other countries believed to be involved. In
fact, the specifics of the network of black sites
remains controversial. The
United Nations has begun to intervene in this
aspect of black sites.

British Prime Minister
Tony Blair said that the report "added
absolutely nothing new whatever to the information
we have."[12][13]
Poland and Romania received the most direct
accusals, as the report claims the evidence for
these sites is "strong." The report cites airports
in
Timişoara, Romania, and
Szymany, Poland, as "detainee transfer/drop-off
point[s]." Eight airports outside Europe are also
cited.

On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee
Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors
compliance with the
United Nations Convention Against Torture)
recommended that the United States cease holding
detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of
rendering prisoners to countries where they are
likely to be tortured. The decision was made in
Geneva following two days of hearings at which a
26-member U.S. delegation defended the practices.[14][15]

Public information about black site operation

The U.S. government does not provide information
about the operation of black sites, and for a period
of time did not provide information about the
existence of black sites.

Representations by the Bush administration

Responding to the allegations about black sites,
Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice stated on December 5 that US
had not violated any
country's sovereignty in the
rendition of suspects, and that individuals were
never rendered to countries where it was believed
that they might be tortured. Some media sources have
noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of
covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of
the "host" nation,[16]
or the possibility that promises by such "host"
nations that they will refrain from torture may not
be genuine.[17]
On September 6, 2006, Bush publicly admitted the
existence of the secret prisons[6]
and that many of the detainees held there were being
transferred to Guantanamo Bay.[7]

On April 21, 2006,
Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was
fired for allegedly leaking
classified information to a Washington Post
reporter,
Dana Priest, who was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for her revelations concerning
the CIA's black sites. Some have speculated that the
information allegedly leaked may have included
information about the camps.[19]
McCarthy's lawyer, however, claimed that McCarthy
"did not have access to the information she is
accused of leaking."[20]
The Washington Post posited that McCarthy
"had been probing allegations of criminal
mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq
and Afghanistan", and became convinced that "CIA
people had lied" in a meeting with
US Senate staff in June 2005.[21]

In a September 29, 2006, speech, Bush stated:
"Once captured,
Abu Zubaydah,
Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were taken into custody
of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning
of these and other suspected terrorists provided
information that helped us protect the American
people. They helped us break up a cell of Southeast
Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for
attacks inside the United States. They helped us
disrupt an al Qaeda operation to develop
anthrax for terrorist attacks. They helped us
stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in
Djibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the
U.S. Consulate in
Karachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger
planes and to fly them into
Heathrow Airport and London's
Canary Wharf."[22]

On July 20, 2007, Bush made an executive order
banning torture of captives by intelligence
officials.[23]

In a September 7, 2007, public address to the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York, rare
for a sitting Director of Central Intelligence,
General
Michael Hayden praised the program of detaining
and interrogating prisoners, and credited it with
providing 70 percent of the
National Intelligence Estimate on the threat to
America released in July. Hayden said the CIA has
detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities
abroad since 2002, and even fewer prisoners have
been secretly transferred to or from foreign
governments. In a 20-minute question-and-answer
session with the audience, Hayden disputed
assertions that the CIA has used
waterboarding,
stress positions,
hypothermia and dogs to interrogate suspects —
all techniques that have been broadly criticized.
"That's a pretty good example of taking something to
the darkest corner of the room and not reflective of
what my agency does" Hayden told one person from a
human rights organization.
[24]

Specific facts surrounding black sites

As discussed in the preceding section, many of
the facts surrounding black sites remain
controversial. The identity of detainees and the
location of sites are known with varying degrees of
certainty, though many facts have been discovered in
substantial detail.

Detainees

The list of those thought to be held by the CIA
include suspected al-Qaeda members
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin,
Ramzi bin al-Shibh and
Abu Zubaydah. The total number of
ghost detainees is presumed to be at least one
hundred, although the precise number cannot be
determined because fewer than 10% have been charged
or convicted. However, Swiss senator
Dick Marty's memorandum on "alleged detention in
Council of Europe states" stated that about 100
persons have been kidnapped by the CIA on European
territory and subsequently
rendered to countries where they may have been
tortured. This number of 100 persons does not
overlap, but adds itself to the U.S.-detained 100
ghost detainees.[25]

A number of the alleged detainees listed above
were transferred to the U.S.-run
Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba in the fall of
2006. With this publicly announced act, the United
States government de facto also acknowledged the
existence of secret prisons abroad in which these
prisoners were held.

Khaled el-Masri

Khalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was
detained, flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and
allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months,
and then released in remote Albania in May 2004
without having been charged with any offense. This
was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose
concerning the similarity of the spelling of
El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected
terrorist
Khalid al-Masri. Germany had issued warrants for
13 people suspected to be involved with the
abduction, but dropped them in September, 2007.

On October 9, 2007, the
U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to
hear an appeal of El-Masri's civil lawsuit against
the United States (El-Masri
v. Tenet), letting stand an earlier verdict by a
federal district court judge, which was upheld by
the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Those courts had agreed with the government that the
case could not go forward without exposing
state secrets. In May 2007, Masri was committed
to a psychiatric institution after he was arrested
in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm on suspicion
of arson. His attorney blamed his troubles on the
CIA, saying the kidnapping and detention had left
Masri a "psychological wreck."[26]

Imam
Rapito

The CIA abducted
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (also known as Abu
Omar) in
Milan and transferred him to Egypt, where he was
allegedly tortured and abused. Hassan Nasr was
released by an Egyptian court — who considered his
detention "unfounded" — in February 2007 and has not
been indicted for any crime in Italy. Ultimately, 26
Americans and nine Italians have been indicted. As
of November 4, 2009, an Italian judge convicted 22
of the Americans (all suspected or confirmed CIA
agents), a U.S. Air Force (USAF) colonel, and two of
the Italians.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

The defense for Dr.
Aafia Siddiqui currently under trial in the US
has alleged that she was held and tortured in a
secret US facility at
Baghram for several years. Aafia's case gained
notoriety due to Yvon Radley's allegations in her
book, The Grey Lady of Baghram.

Suspected black sites

The U.S. and
suspected CIA "black sites"

Extraordinary
renditions allegedly have
been carried out from these
countries

An estimated 50 prisons have been used to hold
detainees in 28 countries, in addition to at least
25 more prisons in Afghanistan and 20 in Iraq. It is
estimated that the U.S. has also used 17 ships as
floating prisons since 2001, bringing the total
estimated number of prisons operated by the U.S.
and/or its allies to house alleged terrorist
suspects since 2001 to more than 100.

Asia

Middle East

In Afghanistan, the prison at
Bagram Air Base was initially housed in an
abandoned brickmaking factory outside
Kabul known as the "Salt
Pit",[30]
but later moved to the base some time after a young
Afghan died of hypothermia after being stripped
naked and left chained to a floor. During this
period, there were several incidents of
torture and prisoner abuse, though they were
related to non-secret prisoners, and not the
CIA-operated portion of the prison. At some point
prior to 2005, the prison was again relocated, this
time to an unknown site. Metal containers at Bagram
Air Base were reported to be black sites.[31]
Some Guantanamo Bay detainees report being tortured
in a prison they called "the
dark prison", also near Kabul.[32]
Also in Afghanistan,
Jalalabad and
Asadabad have been reported as suspected sites.[33]

Indian Ocean

The U.S. Naval Base in
Diego Garcia was reported to be a black site,
but UK and U.S. officials initially attempted to
suppress these reports.[40][41]
However, it has since been revealed by
Time magazine and a "senior American
official" source that the UK isle was indeed used by
the U.S. as a secret prison for "war on terror"
detainees.

While the revelation is expected to cause
considerable embarrassment for both governments, UK
officials may face considerable exposure since they
had previously quelled public outcry over U.S.
detainee abuse by falsely reassuring the public no
U.S. detainment camps were housed any on UK bases or
territories. The UK may also face liabilities over
apparent violations of international treaties.[42]

The interior minister of Romania,
Vasile Blaga, has assured the EU that the
Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport was used only as a
supply point for equipment, and never for detention,
though there have been reports to the contrary. A
fax intercepted by the
Onyx Swiss interception system, from the
Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy
stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely
interrogated by the U.S. at the base.[43][44][45]
In 2007, it was disclosed by
Dick Marty (investigator) that the CIA allegedly
had secret prisons in Poland and Romania.[46]

In June 2008, a New York Times article
claimed, citing unnamed CIA officers, that
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was held in a secret
facility in Poland near
Szymany Airport, about 100 miles north of
Warsaw and it was there where the he was
interrogated and the waterboarding was applied. It
is claimed that waterboarding was used about 100
times over a period of two weeks before Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed began to cooperate.[49]
In September 2008, two anonymous Polish intelligence
officers made the claims about facilities being
located in Poland in the Polish daily newspaper
Dziennik. One of them stated that between
2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a
military intelligence training
base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland.
The officer said only the CIA had access to the
isolated zone, which was used because it was a
secure site far from major towns and was close to a
former military airport. Both Prime Minister
Leszek Miller and President
Aleksander Kwasniewski knew about the base, the
newspaper reported. However, the officer said it was
unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being
tortured because the Poles had no control over the
Americans' activities.[50]
On January 23, 2009, The Guardian reported
that the CIA had run black sites at
Szymany Airport in Poland,
Camp Eagle in
Bosnia and
Camp Bondsteel in
Kosovo.[39]
The United States has refused to cooperate with a
Polish investigation into the matter, according to
the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.[51]

In November 2009, reports alleged a black site
referred to in The Washington Post's
2005 article had been located in
Lithuania. A former riding school in Antaviliai,
a village some 25 kilometres (16 mi) from
Vilnius, was said to have been converted into a
jail by the CIA in 2004.[52]
The allegations resulted in a parliamentary inquiry,
and
Lithuanian President
Dalia Grybauskaitė stated that she had "indirect
suspicions" about a black site in her country.[53]
On December 22, 2009, the parliamentary commission
finished its investigation and stated they found no
proof that a black site had existed in Lithuania.
Valdas Adamkus, a former president of Lithuania,
said he is certain that no alleged terrorists were
ever detained on Lithuanian territory.[54]

Mobile sites

U.S. warship
USS Bataan[55][56][57]-
By definition as a U.S. military vessel, this is
not technically a "black site" as defined above.
However, it has been used by the United States
military as a temporary initial interrogation
site (after which, prisoners are then
transferred to other facilities, possibly
including black sites).

Media and investigative history

Media

The Washington Post December 2002

The Washington Post on December 26, 2002,
reported about a secret CIA prison in one corner of
Bagram Air Force Base (Afghanistan) consisting
of metal shipping containers.[3]
On March 14, 2004, The Guardian reported that
three British citizens were held captive in a secret
section (Camp
Echo) of the Guantánamo Bay complex.[64]
Several other articles reported the retention of
ghost detainees by the CIA, alongside the other
official "enemy
combatants". However, it was the revelations of
the Washington Post, in a November 2, 2005,
article, that would start the scandal. (below)[65]

Human Rights Watch March 2004 report

A report by the
human rights organization
Human Rights Watch, entitled "Enduring Freedom -
Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan", states that the
CIA has operated in Afghanistan since September,
2001;[66]
maintaining a large facility in the Ariana Chowk
neighborhood of
Kabul and a detention and interrogation facility
at the
Bagram airbase.

Village March 2005 report

In the 26 February-4 March 2005, edition of
Ireland's
Village magazine, an article titled
"Abductions via Shannon" claimed that Dublin and
Shannon airports in Ireland were "used by the CIA to
abduct suspects in its 'war on terror'". The article
went on to state that a
Boeing 737 (registration number N313P, later
reregistered
N4476S) "was routed through Shannon and Dublin
on fourteen occasions from 1 January 2003 to the end
of 2004. This is according to the flight log of the
aircraft obtained from
Washington, D.C., by Village.
Destinations included
Estonia (1/11/03);
Larnaca,
Salé,
Kabul,
Palma,
Skopje,
Baghdad, Kabul (all 16 January 2004);Marka
(10 May 2004 and 13 June 2004). Other flights began
in places such as
Dubai (2 June 2003 and 30 December 2003), Mitiga
(29 October 2003 and 27 April 2004), Baghdad (2003)
and Marka (8 February 2004, 4 March 2004, 10 May
2004), all of which ended in Washington, D.C..

According to the article, the same aircraft
landed in Guantanamo Bay on September 23, 2003,
"having travelled from Kabul to
Szymany (Poland),
Mihail Kogălniceanu (Romania) and Salé
(Morocco)." It had been used "in connection with the
abduction in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, of
Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese
descent, on 31 December 2003, and his transport to a
US detention centre in Afghanistan on 23 January
2004."

In the article, it was noted that the aircraft's
registration showed it as being owned by Premier
Executive Transport Services, based in
Massachusetts, though as of February 2005 it was
listed as being owned by
Keeler and Tate Management,
Reno, Nevada (US). On the day of registration
transference, a Gulfstream V jet (number
N8068V) used in the same activities, was
transferred from Premier Executive Transport
Services to a company called
Baynard Foreign Marketing.

Washington Post November 2005 article

A story by reporter
Dana Priest published in The Washington Post
of November 2, 2005, reported: "The CIA has been
hiding and interrogating some of its most important
alleged al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound
in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign
officials familiar with the arrangement."[67]
According to current and former intelligence
officials and diplomats, there is a network of
foreign prisons that includes or has included sites
in several European democracies, Thailand,
Afghanistan, and a small portion of the Guantánamo
Bay prison in Cuba - this network has been labeled
by
Amnesty International as "The
Gulag Archipelago", in a clear reference to the
novel of the same name by Russian writer and
activist
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[68][69]

The reporting of the secret prisons was heavily
criticized by members and former members of the
Bush Administration. However, Priest states no
one in the administration requested that the
Washington Post not print the story. Rather they
asked they not publish the names of the countries in
which the prisons are located.[68]
"The Post has not identified the East European
countries involved in the secret program at the
request of senior U.S. officials who argued that the
disclosure could disrupt
counter-terrorism efforts".[70]

Human Rights Watch's report

On November 3, 2005, Tom Malinowski of the New
York-based
Human Rights Watch cited circumstantial evidence
pointing to Poland and Romania hosting CIA-operated
covert prisons. Flight records obtained by the group
documented the
Boeing 737 'N4476S' leased by the CIA for
transporting prisoners leaving Kabul and making
stops in Poland and Romania before continuing on to
Morocco, and finally Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.[71][72]
Such flight patterns might corroborate the claims of
government officials that prisoners are grouped into
different classes being deposited in different
locations. Malinowski's comments prompted quick
denials by both Polish and Romanian government
officials as well as sparking the concern of the
International Committee of the Red Cross
("ICRC"), who called for access to all foreign
terrorism suspects held by the United States.

The accusation that several EU members may have
allowed the United States to hold, imprison or
torture detainees on their soil has been a subject
of controversy in the European body, who announced
in November 2005 that any country found to be
complicit could lose their right to vote in the
council.[73]

Amnesty International November 2005 report

On November 8, 2005, rights group
Amnesty International provided the first
comprehensive testimony from former inmates of the
CIA black sites.[74]
The report, which documented the cases of three
Yemeni nationals, was the first to describe the
conditions in black site detention in detail. In a
subsequent report, in April 2006, Amnesty
International used flight records and other
information to locate the black site in Eastern
Europe or Central Asia.

BBC December 2006 report

On 28 December 2006, the BBC reported that during
2003, a well-known CIA
Gulfstream V aircraft implicated in
extraordinary renditions,
N379P, had on several occasions landed at the
Polish airbase of
Szymany. The airport manager said that airport
officials were told to keep away from the aircraft,
which parked at the far end of the runway and
frequently kept their engines running. Vans from a
nearby intelligence base (Stare
Kiejkuty) met the aircraft, stayed for a short
while and then drove off. Landing fees were paid in
cash, with the invoices made out to "probably fake"
American companies.[75]

New Yorker August 2007 article

An August 13, 2007, story by
Jane Mayer in
The New Yorker reported that the CIA has
operated "black site" secret prisons by the direct
Presidential order of George W. Bush since shortly
after 9/11, and that extreme psychological
interrogation measures based at least partially on
the
Vietnam-era
Phoenix Program were used on detainees. These
included sensory deprivation,
sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked
indefinitely and photographing them naked to degrade
and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs
by suppositories to further break down their
dignity. According to Mayer's report, CIA officers
have taken out professional liability insurance,
fearing that they could be criminally prosecuted if
what they have already done became public knowledge.[76]

September 2007 media reports to present

On September 14, 2007, The Washington Post
reported that members of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had
requested the withdrawal of the nomination of John
Rizzo - a career CIA lawyer - for the position of
general counsel, due to concerns about his
support for Bush administration legal doctrines
permitting "enhanced interrogation" of terrorism
detainees in CIA custody.
[77]

On October 4, 2007, The New York Times
reported that, shortly after
Alberto Gonzales became
Attorney General in February 2005, the
Justice Department issued a secret opinion which
for the first time provided CIA explicit
authorization to barrage terror suspects with a
combination of painful physical and psychological
tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning
and frigid temperatures. This was in direct
opposition to a public legal opinion issued in
December 2004 that declared torture "abhorrent".
Gonzales reportedly approved the legal memorandum on
"combined effects" over the objections of
James B. Comey, the outgoing deputy attorney
general, who told colleagues at the Justice
Department that they would all be "ashamed" when the
world eventually learned of it. According to the
Times report, the 2005 Justice Department
opinions remain in effect, and their legal
conclusions have been confirmed by several more
recent memorandums.
[78]

Patrick Leahy and
John Conyers, chairmen of the respective Senate
and House Judiciary Committees, requested that the
Justice Department turn over documents related to
the secret February 2005 legal opinion to their
committees for review.
[79] The chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee,
John D. Rockefeller IV, wrote to acting attorney
general
Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all
opinions on interrogation since 2004. "I find it
unfathomable that the committee tasked with
oversight of the C.I.A.'s detention and
interrogation program would be provided more
information by The New York Times than by the
Department of Justice", Rockefeller's letter read in
part.
[80] On October 5, 2007, President George
W. Bush responded, saying "This government does not
torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and
our international obligations." Bush said that the
interrogation techniques "have been fully disclosed
to appropriate members of Congress."
[81]

On October 11, 2007, The New York Times
reported that CIA director Gen.
Michael V. Hayden had ordered an unusual
internal inquiry into the work of the agency's
inspector general, John L. Helgerson, whose
aggressive investigations of the CIA's detention and
interrogation programs and other matters have
created resentment among agency operatives. The
inquiry is reportedly being overseen by
Robert L. Deitz, a lawyer who served as general
counsel at the
National Security Agency when Hayden ran it, and
also includes
Michael Morrell, the agency's associate deputy
director.

A report by Helgerson's office completed in the
spring of 2004 warned that some CIA-approved
interrogation procedures appeared to constitute
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as defined
by the international Convention Against Torture.
Some of the inspector general's work on detention
issues was conducted by
Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired from the agency
in 2006 after being accused of leaking classified
information. Helgerson's office is reportedly
nearing completion on a number of inquiries into CIA
detention, interrogation, and renditions.
[82] Members of the House and Senate
intelligence committees expressed concern about the
inquiry, saying that it could undermine the
inspector general's role as independent watchdog.
Senator
Ron Wyden (D–OR)
said he was sending a letter to
Mike McConnell, the
director of national intelligence, asking him to
instruct General Hayden to drop the inquiry.[83]

In an October 30, 2007, address to the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs, CIA Director General
Michael Hayden defended the agency's
interrogation methods, saying, "Our programs are as
lawful as they are valuable." Asked a question about
waterboarding, Hayden mentioned attorney general
nominee
Michael Mukasey, saying, "Judge Mukasey cannot
nor can I answer your question in the abstract. I
need to understand the totality of the circumstances
in which this question is being posed before I can
give you an answer."
[84]

On December 6, 2007, the CIA admitted that it had
destroyed videotapes recordings of CIA
interrogations of terrorism suspects involving harsh
interrogation techniques, tapes which critics
suggest may have documented the use of torture by
the CIA, such as waterboarding. The tapes were made
in 2002 as part of a secret detention and
interrogation program, and were destroyed in
November 2005. The reason cited for the destruction
of the tapes was that the tapes posed a security
risk for the interrogators shown on the tapes. Yet
the department also stated that the tapes "had no
more intelligence value and were not relevant to any
inquiries".
[85] In response, Senate Armed Services
Committee Chairman
Carl Levin,
D–Michigan, stated: "You'd have to burn every
document at the CIA that has the identity of an
agent on it under that theory." Other Democrats in
Congress also made public statements of outrage
about the destruction of the tapes, suggesting that
a violation of law had occurred.
[86]

European investigations

After a media and public outcry in Europe
concerning headlines about "secret CIA prisons" in
Poland and other US allies, the EU through its
Committee on Legal Affairs investigated whether any
of its members, especially Poland, the Czech
Republic or Romania had any of these "secret CIA
prisons." After an investigation by the EU Committee
on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the EU determined
that it could not find any of these prisons. In
fact, they could not prove if they had ever existed
at all. To quote the report, "At this stage of the
investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable
evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention
centres in Romania, Poland or any other country.
Nevertheless, there are many indications from
various sources which must be considered reliable,
justifying the continuation of the analytical and
investigative work."[87]

French investigations

The prosecutor of
Bobigny court, in France, opened up an
investigation in order "to verify the presence in
Le Bourget Airport, on July 20, 2005, of the
plane numbered N50BH." This instruction was opened
following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by
the
Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH) NGO
("Human Rights League") and the
International Federation of Human Rights Leagues
(FIDH) NGO on charges of "arbitrary detention",
"crime of torture" and "non-respect of the rights of
war prisoners". It has as objective to determine
if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners to
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and if the French
authorities had knowledge of this stop. However, the
lawyer defending the LDH declared that he was
surprised that the judicial investigation was only
opened on January 20, 2006, and that no
verifications had been done before.

On December 2, 2005, conservative newspaper
Le Figaro had revealed the existence of two
CIA planes that had landed in France, suspected of
transporting CIA prisoners. But the instruction
concerned only N50BH, which was a
Gulfstream III, which would have landed at Le
Bourget on July 20, 2005, coming from
Oslo, Norway. The other suspected aircraft would
have landed in
Brest on March 31, 2002. It is investigated by
the Canadian authorities, as it would have been
flying from
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada,
via
Keflavík in
Iceland before going to
Turkey.[91]

Portuguese investigations

On February 5, 2007, Portuguese general
prosecutor Cândida Almeida, head of the Central
Investigation and Penal Action Department (DCIAP),
announced an investigation of "torture or inhuman
and cruel treatment", prompted by allegations of
"illegal activities and serious human rights
violations" made by MEP Ana Gomes to the attorney
general, Pinto Monteiro, on January 26, 2007.[92]

Gomes was highly critical of the
Portuguese government's reluctance to comply
with the European Parliament Commission
investigation into the CIA flights, leading to
tensions with Foreign Minister
Luís Amado, a member of
her party. She said she had no doubt that
illegal flights were frequently permitted during the
Durão Barroso (2002–2004) and
Santana Lopes (2004–2005) governments, and that
"during the [present Socialist] government of
José Sócrates, 24 flights which passed through
Portuguese territory" are documented.[93]
She expressed satisfaction with the opening of the
investigation, but emphasized that she had always
said a parliamentary inquiry would also be
necessary.[92]

Visão magazine journalist Rui Costa Pinto
also testified before the DCIAP. She had written an
article, rejected by the magazine, about flights
passing through
Lajes Field in the
Azores, a Portuguese airbase used by the US Air
Force.[92]

Approximately 150 CIA flights have been
identified as having flown through Portugal.[94]

Other European investigations

The
European Union (EU) as well as the
Council of Europe pledged to investigate the
allegations. On November 25, 2005, the lead
investigator for the Council of Europe, Swiss
lawmaker
Dick Marty announced that he had obtained
latitude and longitude coordinates for suspected
black sites, and he was planning to use satellite
imagery over the last several years as part of his
investigation. On November 28, 2005, EU Justice
Commissioner
Franco Frattini asserted that any EU country
which had operated a secret prison would have its
voting rights suspended.[95]
On 13 December 2005
Dick Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity
in Europe on behalf of the
Council of Europe in Strasbourg, reported
evidence that "individuals had been abducted and
transferred to other countries without respect for
any legal standards". His investigation has found
that no evidence exists establishing the existence
of secret CIA prisons in Europe, but added that it
was "highly unlikely" that European governments were
unaware of the American program of renditions.
However, Marty's interim report, which was based
largely on a compendium of press clippings has been
harshly criticised by the governments of various EU
member states.[96]
The preliminary report declared that it was "highly
unlikely that European governments, or at least
their intelligence services, were unaware" of the
CIA kidnapping of a "hundred" persons on European
territory and their subsequent
rendition to countries where they may be
tortured.[25]

On April 21, 2006, the New York Times
reported that European investigators said they had
not been able to find conclusive evidence of the
existence of European black sites.[97]

On 27 June 2007, the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
voted on Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801
backing the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty.
The Assembly declared that it was established with a
high degree of probability that secret detention
centres had been operated by the CIA under the High
Value Detainee (HVD) program for some years in
Poland and Romania.[96]

The Onyx-intercepted fax

In its edition of January 8, 2006, the Swiss
newspaper
Sonntagsblick published a document
intercepted on November 10 by the Swiss
Onyx interception system (similar to the
UKUSA's
ECHELON system). Purportedly sent by the
Egyptian embassy in London to foreign minister
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the document states that 23
Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated at
Mihail Kogălniceanu base near
Constanţa, Romania. According to the same
document, similar interrogation centers exist in
Bulgaria, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and
Ukraine.[47]

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry later explained
that the intercepted fax was merely a review of the
Romanian press done by the Egyptian Embassy in
Bucharest. It probably referred to a statement by
controversial Senator and Great Romania party leader
Corneliu Vadim Tudor.[98]

The Swiss government did not officially confirm
the existence of the report, but started a judiciary
procedure for leakage of secret documents against
the newspaper on 9 January 2006.

The European Parliament's February 14, 2007, report

The
European Parliament's report, adopted by a large
majority (382
MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74
abstaining) passed on February 14, 2007, concludes
that many European countries tolerated illegal
actions of the CIA including secret flights over
their territories. The countries named were:
Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece,
Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain,
Sweden and the United Kingdom.[1]
The report:

"denounces the lack of co-operation of many
member states and of the
Council of the European Union with the
investigation", "Regrets that European countries
have been relinquishing control over their
airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or
admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on
some occasions, were being used for illegal
transportation of detainees; Calls for the
closure of [the US military detention mission
in] Guantanamo and for European countries
immediately to seek the return of their citizens
and residents who are being held illegally by
the US authorities; Considers that all European
countries should initiate independent
investigations into all stopovers by civilian
aircraft [hired by] the CIA; Urges that a ban or
system of inspections be introduced for all
CIA-operated aircraft known to have been
involved in extraordinary rendition."[99][100]

The report criticized a number of European
countries (including Austria, Italy, Poland,
Portugal and the UK) for their "unwillingness to
co-operate" with investigators and the action of
secret services for lack of cooperation with the
Parliaments' investigators and acceptal of the
illegal abductions. The European Parliament voted a
resolution condemning member states which accepted
or ignore the practice. According to the report, the
CIA had operated 1,245 flights, many of them to
destinations where suspects could face torture. The
Parliament also called for the creation of an
independent investigation commission and the closure
of Guantanamo. According to Giovanni Fava (Socialist
Party), who drafted the document, there was a
"strong possibility" that the intelligence obtained
under the extraordinary rendition illegal program
had been passed on to EU governments who were aware
of how it was obtained. The report also uncovered
the use of secret detention facilities used in
Europe, including Romania and Poland. The report
defines extraordinary renditions as instances where
"an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism
is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred
into the custody of US officials and/or transported
to another country for interrogation which, in the
majority of cases involves incommunicado detention
and torture".

Obama administration

On January 22, 2009, US President Barack Obama
signed an
executive order requiring the CIA to use only
the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United
States
Army Field Manual "unless the Attorney General
with appropriate consultation provides further
guidance." The order also provided that "The CIA
shall close as expeditiously as possible any
detention facilities that it currently operates and
shall not operate any such detention facility in the
future."
[101][39]

In April, 2009, CIA director
Leon Panetta announced that the "CIA no longer
operates detention facilities or black sites", in a
letter to staff and that "[r]emaining sites would be
decommissioned". He also announced that the CIA was
no longer allowing outside "contractors" to carry
out interrogations and that the CIA no longer
employed controversial "harsh interrogation
techniques".[103][104][105]
Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA
would only use interrogation techniques authorized
in the
US Army interrogation manual, and that any
individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only
be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer
them to the custody of authorities in their home
countries, or the custody of another US agency.

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